Blooming Corpse Flower Causes Stink, Draws Crowds

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A corpse flower — a colossal, person-sized plant that has an
outsize personality and smell to match — is creating a malodorous
spectacle this week at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Hundreds of people lined up to get a glimpse and a horrifying
whiff of the aptly named
corpse flower, which sends out a stench of rotting flesh
during its mere hours-long bloom.

"You've heard about charismatic megafauna? Well, this is
charismatic megaflora," said Doug Ewing, greenhouse manager at
the university's department of biology, and the nauseous bloom's
caretaker, who described the giant tuber as the panda bear or
elephant of the plant world.

"It's put on a really good show," Ewing told OurAmazingPlanet.

The Amorphophallus titanum is native to the steamy
jungles of Sumatra in Indonesia. At nearly 5 feet (1.5 meters)
tall, the Seattle bloom is positively dainty compared to the
10-foot (3-m) monsters that can grow in the plant's native land.

The specimen on display had been dormant since 2003. Finally, as
dusk began to fall yesterday (June 8), the titanum — an
extremely distant relative of the potato — began to make its
stinky move.

Ewing said the plants typically open at night, spewing forth the
smell
of death and decay as a come-hither scent to carcass-loving
beetles, which flock to the titanum thinking a feast of
rotten meat awaits.

By the time the beetles discover the hoax, they are trapped
inside the sneaky tuber. Then, as the smell slowly subsides, the
plant's structure relaxes, allowing the beetles to escape through
exits coated with pollen, which the beetles carry off to another
titanum wearing a death-scented disguise.

So what exactly does a corpse flower smell like? Different to
different people, Ewing said, "but it's a powerful, nauseating
aroma. Just unplug your refrigerator, and a week later, open the
door."

To avoid disrupting the titanum's progress, Ewing kept
the lights off in the greenhouse overnight. Around midnight, as
the stench was approaching its peak, Ewing shone a flashlight on
the top of the spadix, the plant's central structure, revealing a
ghoulish sight.

"You could see this whitish vapor coming up off of the spadix,"
Ewing said. "How spooky is that?!"

Ewing is an experienced titanum wrangler — this week's
bloom is his fifteenth — but the reeking plants are unpredictable
and full of surprises, he said.

Although the noxious spectacle kept Ewing at the greenhouse
overnight, he enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to show
off the huge and bizarre plant.

"It really makes people stop and look, and then they start asking
questions," Ewing said. "It's such a wonderful stinking soapbox
for us to use to talk about biology — so we're trying to milk
it."